Shut Up Fool Awards-Moni's In Snowy DC Edition

This Friday finds me waking up in a hotel room bed outside the 713 area code and inside I-495.  Thankfully it's after the 2015 Cirque de GOP, also known as the CPAC conference, has mercifully been over for a week. 

And the beautiful view that greeted me was a snow covered one of Dupont Circle.

At this moment you're reading this I'm knee deep in a Trans Persons of Color Coalition board meeting and loving every moment of it.   I'm proud and happy to be spending this time with my TPOCC family helping to chart the course of this multicultural trans organization for this and the next few years.

Speaking of stuff I'm happy to be doing is calling out every Friday the fool, fools or group of fools that have us shaking our head pondering just how they walk through life being so off the charts ignorant and stupid.

So while I handle my TPOCC meeting business, you TransGriot readers get to find out who won this week's TransGriot Shut Up Fool Awards.

Honorable mention number one is a group award for the GOP House and Speaker John Boehner for their failure to legislate and provide funding for Homeland Security

Honorable mention number two I got north of the border for and give a group award to the Canadian Senate Conservatives for stalling passage of the Trans Rights Bill for two years. and adding an amendment to it exempting C-279 from applying to public spaces including bathrooms and locker rooms.

Just another example why marginalized people all over the world hate conservatism.

Honorable mention number three is Tennessee state Rep Sheila Butt (R), who got her butt (pun intended) in trouble with a racist tweet saying it's time for an NAAWP.



Oh Sheila, you already have the National Association For The Advancement of White People.  It's called the Republican Party.  So have several seats and a nice tall sweet tea flavored glass of shut the hell up.

Honorable mention number four is the Liberty Institute.   They are doing loud and long bitching about the fact their petitions to force a May repeal referendum on the recently passed non discrimination law were rejected.  But what they fail to admit to their sheeple is the city of Plano notified the Liberty Institute three weeks before the deadline to submit the petitions they had problems, and they failed to correct the problems.

Oops.  Looks like no matter what end of I-45 they are on, the haters have a demonstrated inability to collect signatures for petition drives.

And when you attempt to dig a grave for someone, better dig one for yourselves.

Honorable mention number five is Flip Benham, who spent far more time at that Monday hearing for Charlotte's failed LGBT rights bill staked out in front of the women's bathroom oppressing trans women  and  trans kids than he did listening to the testimony of over 150 Queen City citizens expressing themselves pro and con about the ordinance.

Doesn't your perverted azz and your fellow faith based perverts have better things to do than creepily standing watch in front of the women's restroom to berate any transwoman going to piss and poop in them?

Let my trans people poop and piss in peace.

Honorable mention number six is Ben Carson, who in addition to the rants he unleashed during the Cirque de GOP, said that science needs religion to interpret it because it could be propaganda, and that prison sex  proves that being gay is a choice.

Honorable mention number seven is Andrea Shea King, who let loose a racist rant on Wing Nut Daily calling for Congressional Black Caucus legislators that boycotted Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to be hanged.

Another racist idiot with a radio show firing up the conservasheeple.   If she were thirty years younger she'd be perfect FOX Fembot material.

And y'all wonder why I continue to call the Tea Party the Tea Klux Klan.

This week's Shut Up Fool is Cal-ee-forn-ia attorney Matt McLaughlin, who has proposed a California ballot initiative, the 'Sodomite Liquidation Suppression Act'. that would if it made it to the ballot in Cali and passed, would mandate the execution of all gay peeps in the state,

Hey, I have to give him props to not only naming and claiming his hatred, he put his own money ($200) down on what he believes in.   Even if it is genocide.

And you know I gots to call his azz out on it.  Here's another example of a white conservamale wanting to oppress (and kill) somebody he doesn't like.

Never mind the fact a federal judge ruled the California death penalty was unconstitutional last June

Matt McLaughlin, have several seats and shut the hell up, fool!

Kelis' Letter To PETA

TransGriot Note: Y'all know how much I loathe PETA and their racist, sexist, classist, abelist (pick an ism) behinds. In their anti-fur campaigns they've been getting pimp slapped lately by African-American celebs who don't quite see the issue the way they do.

Mary J. Blige has already warned their anti-fur paint throwing hooligans what will happen if they try to throw paint on any fur she owns.

Well, PETA wrote the singer Kelis a letter, which she responded to on January 14 and posted on her Myspace page. Moni's going to save you the trouble and post it here.

Kelis' Letter to PETA

Good morning all!
Ok, so you’re gonna love this. The other day I got a personalized letter from PETA! Lol so after some thought I've decided to write one back. Goes a little something like this:

****

There is no humane way to kill anything, let me start there. It’s unfortunate but it’s part of life. With that being said, I would eat pterodactyl if you found some and you told me it was meaty and delicious. And after doing a very minimal amount of research....... I found out that the founder Ingrid Newkirk is completely batty. I had a feeling but she far exceeded my expectations. I mean certifiably insane! Lol this chicks will is nuts, google it – it’s a riot! Beyond the fact that I think she's a diabetic, which means she needs insulin, which is taken from lab pigs (I know this because my sister happens to be in veterinary school), which would be completely hypocritical. It’s like don't abuse animals unless it can help me.

I feel very strongly about a lot of things such as the sweatshops that spin cotton and the blood on their hands. Btw it’s not just the look of fur. It’s warm as hell and feels glorious, ever rubbed faux fur on your body? Nothing luxurious about that. Then the letter proceeded to name artist and designers who don't wear real fur. Great! More for me! I don't judge them, don't judge me.

If I started wearing endangered animals like polar bear or orangutan then talk to me. (Which btw for the record I would not - I do believe in the preservation of endangered species) But the minks and chinchilla that quite honestly are rodents and if weren't in the form of a coat I would demand they be put to death anyway are not an issue to me.

The death of high fashion. Ugh.

I eat meat, and in fact my mouth salivates as I type the word meat! And the paint throwing that's just ridiculous! What if I was hurling Loubitons and Pierre Hardy's at every sad poorly dressed person on the street? As right as I may be it’s just fanatical and crazy. And people have the right to feel as they please. What about art? Survival of the fittest. Natural selection? No let's just let all the rodents run free and over take our cities. Oh wait they have, NY and LA in particular are infested! Why don't u save them all from scavenging on the streets and ruining my evening strolls, take them home. Make them pets! Get off my back! Pun intended!

Underpaid minorities picking your vegetables, now that's fine for you right? Please, fight for their rights. How about the poverty in the communities of brown people around the world. She had the nerve to say (and I quote) "get over it" talking of the issue of black people and slavery in this country verses cows being slaughtered. Is she kidding me? Lol yes she must be. Actually, she's lucky most black people have real issues to worry about in the U.S and don't give a crap what her delusional privileged opinions are. But she should try saying that again just for kicks n giggles on the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Blvd in Harlem n see how well people "get over it" lol.

If u want to preach do it about something worthwhile don't waste my time trying to save the dang chipmunk.

Find a worthwhile cause like the women being maimed in these Middle Eastern countries. Or female circumcision. Or women's rights here in America, we still get paid less for doing the same jobs as men. Quite honestly if you hate the world so much go live in the forest where no one else has to hear you complain about the perfectly good food chain the good Lord created. Everyone has the right to an opinion, and that's mine on that! xoxo

****

Amen, Kelis

Moni's Greatest Song Rewrite Hits-Volume I

One of the features on this blog that you TransGriot readers tell me you never get enough of are my satirical song rewrites.

I'll pen one when world events or newsworthy people inspire me to do.

Well, to make it easy for you (and me) to find them, I'm concentrating all of Moni's song rewrites so far in one post with links for you to peruse them.


The Rad Fem Ones

Saggin' Pants

Barack's The President Now

(You Gotta) Fight For Our Right To Potty

The Propaganda We'll Teach Y'all

Screwed By You

Everyday Sheeple

Grandma Just Got Busted In A Drug Deal

I'm The Sidekick John McCain

GOP Golddigger

They Hate Moni

HRC The Fake Civil Rights Org

You're A Mean One, Barney Frank

I'm The ENDA Bill

The new Barney Theme Song

The GOP Hates Science

Irreplacable

You Can Call Bush Crazy

Why We Hate On Gays

I Won't Vote For Republicans

In Iraqinam

Santa Baby (TG version)

You're Going Back To School

I Cheated In Argentina

Rappin' Rushbo

Teabag Lady

He's A Clown

Get Real

No, No, No (GOP Version)

I Welcome Your Hatred, Robyn

Because I call crap out, ain't 'scurred' to talk about whiteness, white privilege and how it deleteriously affects this community and call out the TS separatists (and others) for their racism and bigotry I have more than a few white sheet wearing detractors who straight up hate me.

Ho hum, Robyn Carolyn Montague is still bitter because I won't add her to the now 1800 people on my Facebook page.  All I have to say to you and the people that share your opinion of moi is I welcome your hatred.

And yeah, bear in mind that I've been active in this community for 15 years and contrary to your jacked up vanillacentric perspective, my friends in it who have my back don't always share my ethnic background.

The TS separatist ranks that you'd fit in quite nicely with because they are in the 'I Hate Moni' club ranks with you are chock full of bitter, rancor filled selfish idiots like you who are pissed off because they assumed they would hold the same level of white male privilege they used to have in their new femme bodies and society said otherwise.


And yeah, I sure am getting off my fine behind to help do my part to organize the next Creating Change conference coming to my hometown. I'm four videotaped hours and counting into an enjoyable oral history project at Rice University that will preserve my thoughts for posterity.  My seven year old blog is approaching 5 million hits and is archived.   I was honored by BTMI last March with an advocacy award named after me. 

And oh yeah, did you see who made the inaugural Trans100 List?   Sure wasn't you.

As I told your trifling, bitter butt back in February, my Facebook page, my rules.  Your continued nekulturny antics make that decision I made then to NOT add you to it look even wiser in the four months since I made that call. 

And you are still role modeling what I said about you four months ago. 

You're not a lady, you're another late transitioning asshole that still is carrying around that WMPesque attitude you spent much of your life marinating in.

So if you're going to post a derogatory comment about moi making an allegation about what I said, at least make it accurate.  Take the time to cut and paste what I said about you down to the syllable

On that note, I've wasted enough bandwith playing with you.  I have trans human rights I have to help our community get, stories I need to shine a bright spotlight on, trans people I need to inteview who are actually doing something to make a difference, speeches to write and a presentation to finish.

And naw, I'm still not adding you to my Facebook page
  .

2015 Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award Acceptance Speech

TransGriot Note: This is the text of the speech I'm currently delivering at Fantasia Fair that's entitled 'A Fantastic Voyage Towards Trans Human Rights Progress'


Good afternoon to Barbara Curry, Jamie Dailey, Dallas Denny, Mary Beth Cooper, Miqqi Gilbert, Fantasia Fair staff and volunteers, my fellow transpeople, my mentor Dainna Cicotello, Fantasia Fair attendees, significant others and spouses, allies and friends.

Thank you Denise Norris for that wonderful introduction, and thank you for the work that you have done to make this world better for all of us.

Thanks also to the Fantasia Fair team that has worked hard to not only make it possible for me to be standing in front of you delivering this speech, but is working daily to make this week a special and enjoyable one for all of you here in attendance here in Provincetown today and for the rest of the 41st edition of this conference.

I am pleased and proud to be standing before you making history this afternoon as the first African-American transperson to be honored by Fantasia Fair with the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award.  I enthusiastically accept it on behalf of myself and the trans ancestors who preceded me in proudly living our trans lives and fighting for our humanity and freedom,.

I also accept this award in the name of all of the people we have lost this year be it through murder or suicide, and may we please have a moment of silence to remind ourselves their lives mattered.

Thank you.

While I may be the first African-American trans person honored with this Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award, I emphatically believe I won't be the last one to be so honored.   We have some people who have been and still are trailblazing African-American leaders such as Marisa Richmond, Kylar Broadus, Dawn Wilson, Miss Major and Louis Mitchell just to name a few who could have easily been standing here today instead of me.

But hey, I'm not going to lie.  I am so happy y'all gave it to me.

It's actually fitting when you think about it, since Texans have figured prominently in shaping the history of the modern trans community.  My fellow Texan Phyllis Frye, who won this award in 2003 is called 'The Godmother of the Trans Rights Movement for providing the innovative leadership we needed at that time as an out trans woman.  She got the Houston anti-crossdressing law killed in August 1980.  She founded the Houston based ICTLEP conferences that started in 1992 and helped organize the trans community, got us focused on the legal aspects of being transgender, got us on the same page politically, instilled a sense of pride in being out, trans and proud, and trained my generation of activists.

The second gender clinic founded in this country after the now closed Johns Hopkins one was in Galveston, TX. in the early 70s at the University of Texas Medical Branch there.. To the west of me in San Antonio the Texas 'T' Party organized in 1988 by Linda and Cynthia Phillips was mushrooming from a regional crossdresser and trans gathering into the then largest trans themed event in the country before it shut down in 1996 and the Atlanta based Southern Comfort grew to take that title.

When the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition was founded in 1999 at an Italian restaurant in Bethesda, MD, two Texans were sitting at that table helping to put it together in myself and Vanessa Edwards Foster.  

And that legacy of innovative Lone Star State trans leadership continues with Josephine Tittsworth's founding of the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit, which has resulted in 20 Texas colleges and universities and five school districts adopting trans inclusive policies.  Carter Brown has grown Black Trans Men Inc from a trans masculine centered conference that happened in Dallas to the Black Trans Advocacy Conference that will be held again in Big D in late April

We have trans leaders emerging across our state that is bigger than France like Lou Weaver, Nell Gaiter, Dr Oliver Blumer, Dee Dee Watters, Lauryn Farris, Katy Stewart, Robyn Morgan Collado, Ana Andrea Molina and Nikki Araguz Loyd.

Thanks fellow trans Texans for your contributions in making the trans community, Texas and our local communities better for transkind.

So don't hate on Texas, appreciate it because of our tradition of producing some kick ass trans leaders, and contrary to outside of Texas public opinion, Austin is not the only spot in my bigger than France sized state that is a liberal progressive bastion.
There is also the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi, El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, Beaumont-Port Arthur and my soon to be third largest city in the US hometown of Houston,

Houston has proudly elected Annise Parker, an out lesbian and longtime LGBT community activist as our mayor three times, and we will shock the world again on November 3 when my fellow Houstonians reject right wing fear and smear campaign tactics and vote to keep the HERO.

For those of you who are not aware of my story beyond what you have seen printed in your Fantasia Fair program, here is the short version.   I have been on my evolutionary trans feminine journey for 21 years and counting.  I love history and I am a Christian in the Rev. Dr MLK Jr liberation theology mode of my faith.   I have been involved in trans human rights activism at the local and state level in Kentucky and Texas, and the federal level since 1998.  

I have an award winning nearly ten year old blog called TransGriot that according to my haters nobody reads.

I am an unapologetically Black Texas trans angelic troublemaker who has zero tolerance for TERFs, fundamentalist idiots, trans community sellouts and anyone else who wishes to oppress and demonize trans people or trample the human rights of others. And I vote in every election cycle despite your attempts Texas GOP to make that harder for me and other people they hate in the Lone Star State to do.

At the time I transitioned on April 4, 1994, the landscape for trans people was light years different than it is now.  Minnesota was the only state along with ten cities, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, MN,  Harrisburg, PA, Champaign, IL, Urbana IL, Santa Cruz, CA, and Grand Rapids, MI which had trans inclusive nondiscrimination laws.   We were a few months from doing a national lobby day in Washington DC, and the trans human rights case law was sketchy at best,

We now have 16 states, the District of Columbia and over 200 jurisdictions that have trans inclusive laws.  We are starting to have court rulings go in our favor and even popular culture is starting to add trans characters like the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful, Transparent and Orange Is The New Black.  

And sometimes they will even have wonder of wonders, trans actors like Scott Turner Schofield and Laverne Cox, playing trans characters.

We are also a few months from seeing the 15,000 trans people in our armed forces get the ability to openly serve our country.    Thanks to TAVA, SPARTA, our allies and people inside our military like Sgt. Shane Ortega who pushed our nation to do what 16 other countries have already done and allowed trans people to enthusiastically answer the call to serve our nation.

Why is that important?  Because people like Kristin Beck, Amanda Simpson, Brynn Tannehill and our trans elders like Monica Helms, Christine Jorgensen and Allyson Robinson have in common is they served in the military, and are now using those leadership skills to benefit our community and our nation.

Another thing I have been moved and gratified to see is the emergence of trans teen leaders like Jazz Jennings, Nicole Maines and others with the help and loving support of their amazing parents, step up around the country to not only educate their peers about trans issues, but fight for their own and our human rights while kicking knowledge to us trans elders and others outside our community as well.

I can`t forget my amazing sister Fallon Fox, who is kicking ass and taking names in the women's MMA world while my sportswriting sis Christina Kahrl is reporting the sports news.

And speaking of reporters, I can't forget the trailblazing Eden Lane, who was the first out trans woman to report on a national political convention back in 2008 when she did so for PBS during the historic Democratic National Convention in Denver that served as then Sen. Barack Obama`s springboard to a presidency that has been the best ever for trans people.

I have been proud to see Geena Rocero, Isis King, Andreja Pejic, Carmen Carrera, Arisce Wanzer and others continue down the path that people like April Ashley, Caroline Cossey, Tracy Africa Norman, Roberta Close  and Lauren Foster blazed down the world's fashion runways.

And even in the tech world, we are represented in that world by Dr Kortney Ziegler and Angelica Ross building on the accomplishments of Dr Lynn Conway.  

But unfortunately one thing hasn't changed since I began my own transition, and that is the level of anti-trans violence aimed at our community.

We received another reminder of it happening on the eve of this conference when Zella Ziona Smith was murdered last Thursday in Maryland.   The thing that infuriates me is that she was just 21 years old and continues the upsetting to me pattern of trans women of  color taking the disproportionate brunt of it.

Thankfully the waste of DNA who is accused of killing her was arrested by the Montgomery County MD police and is rotting in jail without bond.

I am going to say this and continue to say it loudly and proudly until they bury me six feet under my beloved Texas soil.   As a person who is unapologetically Black and trans, my transition does not mean because you don`t like my Black trans behind or my Black trans brothers and trans sisters,  you can unilaterally erase us from the Black community we are an intertwined kente cloth part of.

Neither will we put up with in Trans and LGBT World attempts to erase us from the community we have shed blood for, helped to create or its historical record.

We trans peeps are part of the diverse mosaic of human life on Planet Earth and didn't just pop up in the late 20th early 21st century.   You haters of all ethnic backgrounds don`t like the fact we trans peeps exist, tough.

We ain't having it or putting up with that crap any more because Black trans issues are Black community issues and vice versa.  Trigger happy policing and voter suppression negatively affect me as an unapologetically Black trans person along with the historic demonization of Blackness and Black femininity.    

We have seen far too many people in Houston, including a mayoral candidate named Ben Hall and misguided hypocritical Black ministers who share my ethnic background in this battle to keep our much needed human rights law bearing false witness against the trans community.   We in Black TBLG Houston are not going to tolerate that revolting development, especially when the off the charts anti-trans hate being spewed is resulting in the deaths of my trans younglings.

Hate thoughts + hate speech = hate violence is an equation that leads to the deaths of far too many of our people here and around the world.  And it needs to stop.        

Black community, when will #BlackTransLivesMatter enough to you for you to get off your asses and recognize that our babies are being killed?  I am beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of having to remind Black America that Black transpeople are Black people too.

I`ve discussed some issues pertinent to our community, so let`s shift gears for a moment and talk about where do I see this amazing trans human rights voyage we are on needing to go?

One thing we need to do ASAP is have more trans people run for public office.  As that attempt in several states to criminalize being trans in this 2015 legislative cycle points out, we need to be writing the laws that govern us and not on our knees begging to kill the bad bills or get included in the good ones that advance our human rights.

And before you ask me if I am going to take my own advice and run Moni run, let`s just say I am seriously thinking about it.

I would also like to see every trans person who is eligible to do so to not only register to vote, but to exercise it in each and EVERY election cycle.  If we wish to see trans city council members, trans judges, trans mayors, trans state legislators, trans congress members and a trans president someday, we've got to do our part and provide the trans candidate that steps up to run for office support that includes a cadre of base voters they can reliably count on.

We also need as a trans community to be proactive in tackling systemic race issues in our ranks and doing the hard work to dismantle racism, sexism, homophobia and internalized transphobia in our ranks.  Some of our trans brothers need to stop being as misogynistic as their cis masculine counterparts and be the quality men of trans experience we know they can be.

And as Precious Davis and Myles Brady have been role modeling lately,  trans men and trans women loving each other is a powerful and revolutionary act.

As the stats from the 2011 NTDS point out, my transition as an African descended transperson is not like many of yours in this Fantasia Fair room, and neither is it like the one our Latina trans sisters like Arianna Lint, Jennicet Gutierrez, Ruby Corado, Joanna Cifredo and Elizabeth Rivera among others face.

We have an opportunity to role model to the rest of cis world what the Beloved Community that the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr talked about looks like in practice. White that is going to be a bumpy process at times, it need to be done as part of our ongoing community building efforts.

We must to do a better job on addressing HIV/AIDS issues in Trans World, and the recent Positively Trans Survey was a major first step to doing precisely that.

And people, to borrow the words of Elizabeth Rivera, #StopThe Shade.   We have an array of enemies from the Catholic and Southern Baptist Churches to the TERF`s, FOX Noise and the conservative movement hating on us.

There is enough work that needs to be done in Trans World and beyyond across this country for all of us to excel and shine.  It is time to get busy figuring out what you wish to do, if you have the talent and skill set to accomplish that mission you laid out for yourselves, and get busy making positive change happen.  We do not need to be hating on each other when the reality is we have enemies who wish to destroy all of us.

We need to have regular intergenerational conversations with each other.   I enjoy the phone calls I get for example from Miss Major and Sharyn Grayson, and I`m committing to havoing more conmversations with younger trans activistsgoing forward.   I learn just as much from those conversations as you do from me.

I was blessed to have one of those conversations with Sylvia Rivera in May 2000, and trans younglings, I wish to do for you what Sylvia did for me as a neophyte trans activist.   Those intersectional conversations are important in passing along our history, strategy and tactics, training our replacements in this struggle, and building pride in being the trans men and trans women we are.

We are blessed to be in a tipping point moment for not only the acceptance of trans people in all walks of life, but seeing trans human rights progress grow around the world.

I can`t wait to see how this fantastic voyage of trans human rights progress is going to transpire (pun intended) in the next five to ten years and what exciting things are in store for us.

I also hope we remember the words of the late Nelson Mandela as we continue on this trans human rights voyage  when he said, `For to be free is not merely to cast off one`s chains, but to live in a way that enhances the freedom of others`

I am proud to be doing my part at this pivotal moment in our history to help our community do exactly that as we continue to steer the SS Trans Human Rights to the safe harbor of codified human rights and having our humanity recognized until I have to pass the steering wheel of this ship to the next generation of trans leaders

And I`m confident that when that day comes, the SS Trans Human Rights will be in good hands.

Thank you, may God bless us and our community, may we love one another and ourselves, and you have a wonderful rest of your time here at Fantasia Fair 41.

 

Top GOP Congressional Leaders No Show Selma 50 Event

For those people, especially in Conservaworld and even the liberal ranks who don't understand why I have an intense dislike for the Republican Party, it's simple.

The Republicans hate me and my people.

I'll repeat it for you again if you think Moni was kidding about what I just wrote in that last sentence and write it in bold print for you this time:  The Republicans hate me and my people.

You would think that a part that bristles at the commentary I and other African-Americans inside and outside the TBLGQ community that they are racist, bigoted toward African-Americans, anti-Black, (fill in the blank), you would think they would jump at opportunities to at least symbolically show African-Americans they aren't as bad as we say they are.

But the Selma 50 event came and went without an appearance from top GOP leaders like Speaker of the House John Boehner, Sen Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Majority Klansman, er Whip Steve Scalise or their leading candidates for the GOP 2016 presidential nomination.

And naw, I don't want to hear any false equivalence grousing pointing out some Democratic leaders didn't show up either.

It ain't the Democrats who are gleefully saying racist crap on an almost daily basis or passing repressive legislation, that's all on you Republicans.   

Hell, it would have been more shocking to me if they had shown up, seeing that their party has made attacking the Voting Rights Act one of the centerpieces of conservative movement activity over the last 50 years.

So the next time I or anyone else in Black America calls you out on your racism and your blatantly anti-Black commentary, demagoguery, laws and policies detrimental to our community, I don't want to hear a mumbling FOX broadcast word in protest of it.  

And don't be surprised when I look at you funny when you say you're a proud Republican.

You Republicans and the conservafool movement as a whole are the party of white supremacy, and it's past time that people call them on it and vote accordingly.

Moni's TDOR 2016 Thoughts

We will lose more transgender people to violence. The Remembering Our Dead list will get longer. The anti-transgender rhetoric coming from their acolytes will get nastier and more hateful. They will try to spin and twist Bible verses to favor their immoral positions. But in the end the result will still be the same and the neo-fascists will lose. --TransGriot  June 14, 2007

Today is the 18th Transgender Day of Remembrance, in which we memorialize the people we lost due to anti-trans violence. here in the US and around the world.

This year's TDOR observance is coming upon the heels of a contentious national election in which an unqualified moron who told racist white people what they wanted to hear basically got himself elected to the presidency of this nation.  

That election has consequences for the country, and unfortunately our community and its fragile human rights will be the first in the crosshairs of this undemocratic regime that is Making America Hate Again and ramping up anti-trans animus for political gain.

Unfortunately, that anti-trans animus has resulted in the untimely loss of trans lives, with the vast majority of them being trans people of color.

Jazz Alford, 30 years old
Amos Beede, 38 years old
Keyonna Blakeney, 22 years old
Brandi Bledsoe, 32 years old
Veronica Banks Cano, 30s
Kayden Clarke, 24 years old
Goddess Diamond, 20 years old
Deeniquia Dodds, 22 years old
Shante Isaac, 34 years old
Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, 16 years old
Monica Loera, 43 years old
Skye Mockabee, 26 years old
Noony Norwood, 30 years old
T. T. Saffore, 20s
Jasmine Sierra, 52 years old
Demarkis Stansberry, 30 years old
Mercedes Successful, 32 years old
Rae'lynn Thomas, 28 years old
Erykah Tijerina, 36 years old
Tyreece "Reecey" Walker, 32 years old
Dee Whigham, 25 years old
Quartney Davia Dawsonn-Yochum, 32 years old
Maya Young, 24 years old

Say their names tonight and from now on.  
The majority of the American trans people whose names we will say and light a candle for tonight as part of our regrettable contribution to the international list of trans souls lost are Black and Latina.  

When will their Black Lives Matter, Black community?   When will these Latina lives matter to you, Latinx community?  

When will trans lives matter to this nation, period?

Once this day is over, it's nation time trans Americans and allies..  The  transphobic bigots are compiling unjust  legislation to oppress us that we must fight with every fiber of our beings.  We are going to have to come together as never before and fight the evil that wants to eviscerate our existence.  

We unfortunately have some vanillacentric privileged people in our own ranks who fell for the Trump okey doke and conveniently forgot that theirs and the community's humanity was on the ballot November 8.   They  gleefully voted for the guy with an openly transphobic vice president thinking that their lost white privilege and their wallets were more important than the human rights of the entire trans community, and their white skin would protect them from harm.  

They are about to find out it won't.   They failed us, and more importantly, failed our trans kids, who were depending on their trans elders to handle their electoral business and keep this unqualified man out of the Oval Office.

Today we mourn the people we lost.   Tomorrow we prepare to do what we always do and fight for our very humanity.   And yes, we will win.  Yeah I know I said that in 2007, but I believe it, and I'm going to speak it into existence today.   We have the moral high ground, our haters don't no matter how much Biblical scripture the radicalized faith based haters try to throw.

But this time, we won't be fighting for our humanity and our human rights alone. We will have human rights organizations and allies working intersectionally by our side and at least until noon EST on January 20,  the power of the Obama Administration.

Transgender rights are human rights. and we will have legislators on Capitol Hill and across the country willing to do the right thing and stand up for us.   We will have trans parents standing with us and their kids.  We also have history to peruse that gives us insight on how to fight the hateful evil that has once again befallen this country and we are squarely in the crosshairs of.

Our vision of our community and a fair and just America is worth fighting for.

As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr once said, we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.   The progress that we have made gives me hope that we will get through this.

Haters Gonna Hate

Comedian Katt Williams spoke some truth here.  

So what she/he keeps talking about you and hating on you. What do you think a hater's job is...to hate. If you have someone hating on you right now you better think of how to get five more people hating by Christmas. You need haters to make you stronger..without haters most people wouldn't try to become better. Just tell them b***h you just hate me because you can't be me.' 

 Well, I have a one line sentence that encapsulates the same thing to my haters.   .  

'You hate me because you wanna emulate me.'

And to paraphrase President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,  I welcome your hatred. 

It lets me know I'm on the right track in doing what I need to do.  It lets me know that you're 'scurred' of me for whatever reason in your minds. It lets me know that you are so bothered by the fact that I am speaking my truth, uplifting a longtime downtrodden community and fear me doing my part to get Black transpeople to see themselves in a positive light.

When I'm getting inspiring e-mail from people around the country and the world telling me they appreciate what I do, a post I wrote inspired them, or a post I wrote dissuaded them from committing suicide, that means more to me than any sniping or derogatory commentary you haters can come up with.

But haters gonna hate   Take a number and step in that long line of people that wanna spout vitriol at award winning Moni with the award winning blog 'nobody reads'.   

All you're doing is talking loud and saying nothing while I empower, educate and enunciate my thoughts as to how we make the trans community better, the TBLG community better, and the nation and the world better..
 
On that note, I wasted enough bandwith on y'all.   Time to do as Dr. King called it,  some more hard, solid thinking and writing on subjects that matter.

South Carolina's Slavery Secession Ball

Today is the 150th anniversary of the day that South Carolina seceded from the Union and jumped off a chain of events that led to the War To Perpetuate Slavery.

So how are South Carolinians remembering that odious date?   By hosting a $100 a ticket ball in which people dress in period costumes at Charleston’s Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, eat, dance the Virginia Reel as a band plays “Dixie.” and reenacts the secession ordinance signing ceremony.

Don't even start regurgitating to Moni the Southern revisionist history 'heritage, not hate' arguments or the bullshit 'it wasn't about slavery it was state's rights' line.  The only state's right your ancestors went into treasonous armed insurrection for was to keep my ancestors in chains.

Here it is in black and white, pardon the pun from the South Carolina Declaration of Secession

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

Of course the South Carolina NAACP is on the case and has already denounced the Secession Ball.   They will hold a peaceful march in Charleston on the day of the event, followed by a meeting and question and answer session focusing on slavery..

“This is nothing more than a celebration of slavery,” stated Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP in an interview with The State. "The reason this can take place so easily is we’re still suffering the effects of the Confederacy in this state.”

 

Amen.   They can be happy happy joy joy and remember their good old days now.  But the best part of this whole deal is we get to celebrate April 9, 2015.

 

The 150th anniversary of Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendering to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House and ending the Civil War.  

 

Damn Denny's And 'Errbody' Else, Let My People Pee

Spartanburg, SC based Denny's Inc. is a 1,749-restaurant chain which is one of the largest restaurant companies in the United States.

Back during the 80's Denny's had a corporate 'ethnic cleansing' policy in which managers were under orders not to allow too many Blacks to congregate in their restaurants. I saw firsthand in the 80's the ridiculous extremes that Denny's peeps went to in order to keep their restaurants free of African descended people.

One night when me and my friends went to a Denny's by the Astrodome, they tried to charge us $5 cover just to get in. At another location they tried to make us prepay for food as we watched Whites get seated first without prepaying. Another time at that same Astrodome location me and two Black friends waited for our food while numerous whites who came in after us got in, ordered their food and got out before we saw a single plate hit our table.

The discriminatory culture was so ingrained that on the very day in 1993 a federal court ordered the chain to stop discriminating against Black customers, a Maryland Denny's was sued by Black Secret Service agents for glacially slow service. The class action discrimination lawsuits were eventually settled by Denny's in 1994 for $54 million, but not before a boycott of the chain by African-Americans and countless worldwide retelling of stories similar to mine.

I'm taking this trip down Moni Memory Lane again because those images of past discrimination were on my mind when I heard about the Maine Human Rights Commission case involving Brianna Freeman.

The commission ruled on Monday that an Augusta, ME Denny's franchisee store was guilty of discrimination when it barred Ms. Freeman, a regular customer of the restaurant, from using the women's restroom until she had surgery.

Okay, I and the rest of the transgender community are beyond sick and tired of this bull feces 'bathroom predator' meme the Forces of Intolerance and other ignorant folks who hate on transpeople are pimping these days because they have no logic based argument they can us to deny transgender people their civil rights.

The anti-civil rights peeps have dipped into their old school playbook and recycled the centuries old tactics of deception, fear and lies over the bathroom. The same arguments being used to stir up anti-transgender bathroom passions are the same ones the haters used to justify separate 'white' and 'colored' bathrooms back in the bad old Jim Crow days.

Bottom line, you already share public bathrooms with transpeople and have done so without incident for decades.

I can't tell you how many times at concerts and ball games I saw ciswomen pop into the men's restroom before transition to use it because the lines in the women's restrooms were too long.

The first thing on the minds of many transpeople when we enter a public bathroom is how fast can we shimmy out of our clothes before the pee stream starts, and when we've handled our business washing hands and getting out of there.

We ain't trying to start any static, but too many haters are trying to start World War III with us over peeing in a damn restroom. I transitioned 15 years ago and I'm not going to a men's room where I risk a beatdown or worse because your faith-based ignorance about transgender people makes you uncomfortable.

Deal with it.

In some cases cisgender women are getting caught in the crossfire because of your idiocy.

And let's smack down some more right wing lies while I'm at it. If a predator wants to heaven forbid, sexually assault you in the bathroom, they won't be crossdressed to do it.

As far as the 'pervert' charge, you've got more to worry about from your local priest, 'christian' pastor or straight white males, who commit 98% of the molestation cases against children than you do with your friendly neighborhood transperson.

So to all the haters out there, let my people pee!

Moni's Excellent Memorial Day Weekend

So what did y'all do on Memorial Day weekend?

This year I didn't sit around the house waiting for a late invite to a barbecue or be bored out of my mind watching the Indy 500.  I accepted the invitation of Alice Serna-McDougald, Chris Valdez and United We Dream to join them and Latinx people from five states (AZ, NM, FL, NY and MD) plus Washington DC in Austin to protest SB 4.

After an enjoyable Sunday drive to the ATX with Alice to be there for the fun that was starting at 9:00 AM on Memorial Day,  I was sitting with Alice as we witnessed the silent filling of the House gallery by over 200 people clad in red Fight Back NO SB 4 T-shirts ruining the GOP House majority's self congratulatory back slapping as the clocked ticked toward the sine die moment of the 85th Texas Legislative session

At approximately 10:30 AM chants of 'SB 4 is hate! 'Hey hey ho ho, SB 4 has got to go' , 'Here to stay!' and 'This is what democracy looks like' erupted in the House gallery along with banners being unfurled stating 'See you in court' and 'SB 4 is hate' as simultaneous chanting from the assembled masses on all four floors of the Capital rotunda occurred at the same time.

It was fun watching the shocked, embarrassed and bewildered looks on the faces of the GOP legislators on the House floor who probably thought they were going to escape Austin and head back home without being held accountable for passing that racist law.

Um no, GOP boo boo kitties.  Y'all were not escaping facing the consequences for your racist act on behalf of your party.   I hope they have the same bewildered looks on their faces after the November 6, 2018 election.

Many of the legislators since it was sine die day, had their families with them and probably had to lie to their kids about why they passed the unjust and racist SB 4.

Pro tip to the Texas GOP:  If you don't want to face protests in the Texas capitol, them stop passing unjust and racist laws that will piss people off .

The Texas House leadership reacted by ordering the House gallery cleared as the chanting continued while being herded out of the chamber by DPS state troopers.

Once the gallery was cleared, Texas state Rep. Matt Rinaldi (R-Irving) let his inner bigot out by threatening to shoot a fellow Latinx legislator and telling a group of Latino legislators watching the demonstration from the House floor that he'd called ICE on the protestors.  

Um GOP dude. your pointed hood is showing.  Many of the protestors in that House gallery are American citizens.   You also proved a point I repeatedly make that the most dangerous bigots are the ones who have legislative power.

It's also a bad political move in a city that is 40% Latinx, and you barely won election to your Texas house seat in 2016 anyway.

I also received the honor of getting to make a little speech before the thousands of huddled masses yearning to breathe free from Texas GOP tyranny at the rally on the south steps of the Texas Capitol. .
I loved what Julieta Garibay, one of the co-founders of United We Dream had to say about the Memorial Day SB 4 protests:

“Today was a historic moment in Texas  as brown and Black freedom warriors took over the Capitol to make sure that as Republicans looked up into the gallery that they would forever remember every signal space filled with the beautiful and determined faces of Texans who refuse to be driven out and refuse to be intimidated. This is our state, this is our home and we are here to stay! Today is a turning point in Texas politics — from El Paso to McAllen to Dallas to Houston to Austin we are organizing to create spaces where all people of all backgrounds can survive and thrive. We will resist the Republican attack and we will win!”

Yes ma'am we will, if we work together across the Lone Star State to do so and bumrush the polls on November 6, 2018  to flush the TX GOP out of power.

How (Not) To Write About Black Trans Women

Karnythia of the Angry Black Woman blog had an interesting post I ran across entitled How To Write About Black Women in which she slammed all the tropes, memes and blanket statements aimed at Black women when others outside our community write about us. 

One group she didn't mention is Black trans women, and here's where I was inspired to pick up the baton and happily run with it where Karnythia left off. 

(Moni cracks knuckles) 

Let's get started with this post, shall we?

Only acknowledge the existence of Black transwomen when we are murdered or the victim of a crime, salaciously involved in some scandal or news story you wish to highlight, during the November 20 Transgender Day of Remembrance, you wish to pump up your Nielsen ratings during sweeps week or you wish to use us to insult Black cis women you hate.

Ignore the African descended trans activists who have toiled for decades to represent our community or have eloquently written about those issues for years because only white transwomen do that.  Don't bother quoting Black transwomen on issues of importance to the rainbow community at large, write positive stories about them speaking on trans issues or believe there are engaged Black transfeminine leaders involved in fighting for the human rights of their community and others.        .

Use a sellout Black gay male drag queen, white trans activists at inside the beltway Gay, Inc organizations or local rainbow community orgs to speak as 'experts' on Black trans lives.

Violate the AP Stylebook guidelines on covering transgender people by misgendering Black transwomen at every opportunity.  When known, mention their old male names even if it isn't germane to the story in order to other them and reinforce the point they weren't originally born female.  

If a Black transwoman is a victim of a hate crime or discrimination, you take the police spokesperson or the right wing anti-trans organization word as gospel truth without questioning if the 'man' they are describing in their press conference is actually a transwoman..  Inject the 'deception meme' into the story, add any criminal record your research may have uncovered if they have one and make certain you use either the mug shot or an unflattering picture of her.  Throw in for good measure without any evidence to back it up shady commentary or your presumption the transperson in question was soliciting

Quotes of family members or neighbors misgendering that person work for the story as well.   .


When in the process of rebutting a critique a Black transwoman has written, call her 'angry', 'obsessed about race', take digs at her education and demand she produce dissertation level citations to prove her points. If that doesn't work, call her a racist.  If all of the above fails, call her a 'man'.

If you're a cis female or radical feminist do all of the above, flaunt your ability to menstruate, birth them babies and add misogynist to your list of charges. If you're a white transsexual separatist, obsess about surgical status in addition to doing all of the above.

Position the Black transwoman as the 'unwoman' juxtaposed to cis women and non Black trans women you have anointed with honorary cis privilege.  The Black transwoman doesn't exist except to fulfill the 'tragic transsexual' meme or as martyrs to use in order to fundraise for Gay, Inc organizations.  

They are also handy for browbeating Black civil rights legacy orgs into supporting same gender marriage, taking Black legislators to task to garner support for getting marriage equality laws passed for GL people or ramrod through unjust trans rights laws without public accommodations language.

If Black transwomen object to the erasure or the misuse of their fallen transsisters lives and histories in that manner, accuse them of being divisive, refuse to engage with them, microaggressively engage in tone arguments or lob sexist, bigoted and misgendering comments at them while doing so..

Presume that your cis privileged life and your observations based on collegiate gender theory classes trump the lived experiences and everyday lives of a Black transwoman.  Dismiss it when she states that race matters and aim pre-1963 Dr. King quotes at her while chiding her for not being colorblind   Obsess about the Black transwoman's sexuality and make blanket statements and presumptions that her only interests in life are partying, getting high, getting pumped and turning tricks. 

Make blanket statements and assumptions that she is neither concerned about nor intelligent enough to discuss the human rights issues that affect all transpeople or that she has spirituality, hopes, dreams and aspirations in life just like any other human being on the planet.